"It's a very simple game. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Sometimes it rains."
(Bull Durham)

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Cappsized

How low can you go? Well, not much lower if you're the Pirates. They hit three home runs, banged out eight extra base hits, and carried a 5-0 lead into the sixth and a 7-3 bulge into the ninth and still lost...well, that's about the bottom.

How do you reach the depths? Well, even with the seven runs and the extra base knocks, Pittsburgh was still just 2-for-15 with runners in scoring position. So don't hit in the clutch, don't move runners over, miss bunts, screw up a suicide squeeze...there's lots of ways to lose.

And hey, give up a couple of homers, regularly fall behind in the count, and walk seven guys when you're pitching with the lead is another way.

In justice, it wasn't all bad. The Bucco long balls were nice, especially coming from three youngsters (Garrett Jones, Delwyn Young, and Andrew McCutchen), and the fielding was sweet again, with a couple of nice grabs and a web-gem DP authored by Jack Splat. But again, they did just enough to lose.

The Pirates staff ran through the raindrops during three of the last four innings, but a flood of Biblical proportions washed away Matt Capps in the ninth. He gave up six hits - two went yard - walked a pair (one intentionally), and surrendered five runs.

Capps got one out - a great running catch by McCutchen on a ball hit to the 389 mark - and the bases were still loaded when the game mercifully ended.

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